  Tonight as I was riding on a wave Of triumph and of glory, A Question suddenly, as from the grave, Rose in me, culpatory. "Whence come to you this joyance and this strength" It said, "this might of vision? This will that measures all things to its length, That cuts with calm decision? "This blood within your veins, that is as wine Which Destiny's self blesses. Whence flows it, from what grape that is divine, Or trodden from what presses? "Do you so proud forget what hands have borne You to the heights and crowned you? Would you behold what sackcloth has been worn That laurels may surround you?"... "I would—O lips invisible! whose breath"— I answered—"so arraigns me; Whose voice is as a sound sent forth of Death, And like to Death entrains me. "I would! For if the flesh of me and soul Are fibred with the ages, My triumph is of them and manifold Of all life's mystic stages." So, forth they came—a vast ancestral line, Upon my vision teeming, All shapes whose natal semblance could affine Them to me, faintly gleaming. I knew them as I knew myself, and felt The Day of each within me; And so began to speak, the while they dwelt About—they who had been me. "My Sires," I said, "think you I have forgot The fervor of your living? How into me is moulded all you thought. Of getting or of giving? "Think you I do not feel my every drop Of blood is as an ocean In which are surging and will never stop All things your hope gave motion? "My senses, that are swift to take delight And shrine it in their being, Are they not born of all your faith, and bright With all your bliss of seeing? "And my full heart within whose fount I hear Your voices that are vanished, Can it forget its gratitude or fear Foes that you braved and banished? "No. But the blindly striving years that led You to the Rose's beauty, Or taught you out of Ill to disembed The golden veins of Duty; "The wasting and incalculable wants That in you quailed or quivered; The longing that lit stars no dark now daunts— I know, who stand delivered! "To you then from whose throng the centuries Long dead slip now their shrouding, Who from oblivion's profundities Rise up, and round are crowding, "I say, Immortal do I hold your will! Its gathered might ascending Is sacred with the unconquerable might Of God—who sees its ending; "Of God—on whose strong Vine, Heredity, Rooted in Voids primeval, The world climbs ever to some great To-Be Of passion or reprieval." I said—and on night's infinite beheld Silence alone beside me; And majesty of greater meanings welled Into my soul, to guide me. |
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